Twenty sultry days of spring football practice conclude today in jamborees for Gateway, Osceola and St. Cloud high school athletes.

Gateway and St. Cloud journey to Bishop Moore High School in Orlando to join the host Hornets, Lake Highland Prep and Trinity Prep in a 7 p.m. affair. Osceola travels to Lakeland's Bryant Stadium to join with Lake Gibson, Haines City, Kathleen, Winter Haven and host Lakeland in a 7:30 p.m. start.

Gateway squares off against St. Cloud in the second quarter and plays Bishop Moore in the fourth. St. Cloud collides with Bishop Moore in the fifth quarter. In Lakeland, Osceola meets Lake Gibson in the first quarter and Haines City in the second.

The Bishop Moore jamboree will not feature a live kicking game. Lakeland's will.

Jamborees serve numerous purposes for coaching staffs.

''We were 1-9 last year,'' said St. Cloud Bulldogs Coach Danny Rea Smith, who expects 55 to suit up tonight. ''Frankly, I thought we should have won three or four more.

''Jamborees are fun time but we feel the need to start establishing ourselves. We've got plenty of good young players, and now we're going to find out who wants to play and what we have to work with.''

At Gateway, Coach Doug Peacock said the focus for 39 varsity candidates will be on execution as the Panthers come off a 5-6 finish.

''That's the name of our game,'' he said. ''We want to be sure of what our kids can do.''

Osceola Coach Mike Vogt, who saw 17 Kowboy starters graduate from a club that finished 9-1, has 40 varsity candidates available and plans to experiment with signaling offensive plays in from the sideline.

''We only have six plays in because we spend more of our time teaching fundamentals,'' he said. ''That's a reason why we're never ready for a jamboree.''

Vogt said the Kowboys have talent, but it's very green.

''We've got an awful lot of young kids to line up against pretty good football teams,'' he said.

Probably the most dramatic change in the offensive alignment this spring has been Charles Stoudimire's shift from quarterback to fullback.